Our last white winter??

We got some snow this week. I love those lake effect 1.5-2"/hour snows. I knew that it was supposed to be coming Wednesday night and I knew that it had arrived for sure when I heard the snow blower going at 6:15am Thursday morning (the man who lives in the other half of our duplex loves his riding snow blower, he's normally up really early for work but didn't have work this week. He wanted to be sure that Glenn could get out if he needed to go in to work today, it was so nice!) When I got up around 7 I just stood at the window and stared at the beautiful snow coming down and collecting on the big trees behind our house. Tears started to roll down my cheeks. This beautiful snow is normal to me. It is home. This is likely the last year we will live in a Great Lake effect snow belt for a long time, if not forever. I am going to miss these lake effect snows! Eventually I went out and shoveled the walk (the snow blower doesn't fit down the sidewalk) and went back in to get to work on packing.

Beautiful trees in our back yard

about 13"

Our helpful neighbor and his snow blower

We weren't very effective in packing that day so finally I relented and went out with Abigail who really wanted me to play with her outside. We clambered up a large pile of snow made by the neighbor's plow guy and then started working on a snow fort. Eventually Glenn made everyone come out to play (some of them were grumpy about it at first but everyone was glad they did at the end of the day). We worked on snow forts for a while.

Glenn played with us then had some fun taking some pictures of us as well.

 We ended up attempting 3 different kinds of forts but didn't finish any of them before it started getting dark.

At that point we were also hungry but realized that we needed onions to make dinner which meant a walk to Tops. We decided to all go to get a little bit of exercise. (BTW - I have thoroughly LOVED living a little over a quarter of a mile from a grocery store! Not a necessity but definitely nice to look for in a future home. We usually just walk and everyone carries something home in one of our re-usable bags.)

On the way to Tops I was ahead with a couple of the kids and Glenn was behind with the others when I realized I'd forgotten my list and a coupon that I wanted to use. I turned back to talk to Glenn and he pretended to be scared of me and made a jump for the snow pile on the non-street side of the sidewalk.

 Everyone thought that what he did looked so fun that they wanted to try it as well. We all randomly jumped into the snow piles on the side of the sidewalk trying to clear the ~15" ledge of snow without having our body hole in the snow connect to the sidewalk. It was decided to call the game "Jump" (original, I know).

Lydia didn't quite clear the ledge

Caleb jumped pretty far though

 Here's Glenn and Caleb showing off their "Jump" skills.

I'm really grateful for all the beautiful snow God has given us this past week. These couple of weeks we have left here may be my last chance to experience a good New York snow for a long time. After playing in the snow this week the kids have decided that if we end moving somewhere where there is no snow (some of our options get snow, some don't) we will have to go on vacation during the winter somewhere where there is snow. We'll be reverse snow birds ;)